Social

It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. It's folk wisdom acknowledging that the development of a person requires the contribution of the whole community. What value does the community add, especially when the community in question is the scientific one?

When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.

Sometimes I think I was born with a magnifying glass in my hand, one through which I critically scrutinize everything I do and say and which relentlessly magnifies every imperfection.

Eskimos don't have the word "quarrel" in their vocabulary. They live in a particularly harsh climate, so no one wants to risk getting pneumonia (or dying) just to prove that they are right.

Happiness is a song that we love but rarely sing anymore. It is that familiar children's song that we sang all day every day when we were little. We loved its tune, and it loved us back. We used to live within that melody; it was our default mood. Life was essentially good and it was good to live our life in this...

Sister trio Clara, Emily and Sharon always dreamed of different things they could do together when they grew up. They never thought they would be where they are now as travelling artists with a thriving business and a 17,000 (and growing) following.

“Can’t good people teach bad people to be good?” Madeleine asked her mother, with the innocence of a seven-year-old.

Both specialist research and common experience tell us how complicated it is when children reach adolescence. Dr Bryan Craig helps us to understand the reasons for this and how to turn the crisis into an opportunity for growth.

In a society that does not place great value on sensitivity, raising orchid children—children who are hypersensitive to environmental conditions—can be an overwhelming experience for parents. At least, until they realize the vital role they can play in unleashing the extraordinary potential that such children have.

Immigrating to the United Kingdom was a bold move. As a Latina, I had a lot to get used to, from cars driving on “the wrong side of the road” and the constant weather talk to the beautiful, fluffy texture of Yorkshire puddings. But one of the most shocking elements of my new culture was how seldom people hugged each other. During my...

We know their stories, or we think we know them. Theirs are stories of success that earn the admiration of the entire world. We see the moment of victory and wish we could be in the place of the victorious ones, without realising the effort and sacrifice that are behind that moment of glory. If we truly grasped this, we might become more...

The Oxford Online Dictionary describes theology as “the study of the nature of God and religious belief”. That’s a helpful understanding, but let’s begin with some seriously bad theology as practised by the Russian mystic and faith healer Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. 

"No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books." (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, British poet)

In chaos theory, there is something that scientists call the “butterfly effect”—a seemingly insignificant event triggers a series of other events that later acquire significant importance. The butterfly effect has been used outside the realm of science as a metaphor for small things that have a considerable impact. When it comes to kindness, few things could demonstrate the butterfly effect better than the...

Let’s begin by extrapolating Paul’s assertion: “...but test them all; hold on to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).